L. Ritter (born 1854) was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. He began his career as a lithographer. Beginning 1873, he studied at the McMicken School and later in 1878, he joined Duveneck's group in Munich. Duveneck was an influential American painter and teacher, a native of the Cincinnati area. As a member of the “Duveneck Boys,” Ritter visited Florence, Italy, along with Theodore Wendel. After returning to Cincinnati, along with others in the group, he held a show of recent work in February 1883 at Closson's Art Gallery. The show received reviews that were mildly favorable and the public was not excited about it. This made Ritter to move to Boston and remained there, only returning to Europe occasionally.
His landscape paintings on the New England coast and of scenes in Europe demonstrate the influence of new trends in European art that were just beginning to infiltrate American painting in the 1870s and 1880s. Ritter worked in pastel and in watercolor as well as oils, and made portraits and still-lives as well as landscapes. Ritter began teaching at nearby Wellesley College, in Boston, and painted the scenery along the coast north of the city. Ritter was among the first American artists to visit Giverny. He shared a house with Breck and his (Breck’s) mother and brother in Giverny, but he left after a single season. Ritta exhibited in Philadelphia, New York, Boston and his native Cincinnati. His career was cut short at the age of 37. He died in 1892 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
